


as if he knew me

by DRONE (approximate)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: And I wanted to, M/M, Why?, and they feel things, because pain, neil and andrew drive, roberta flack - killing me softly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:54:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/approximate/pseuds/DRONE
Summary: his mother hated this song





	as if he knew me

andrew let neil thumb at the radio this time. neil peeked at andrew: it wasn't often that he let him pick the music. the last few hours had passed serenely. at the last gas station neil had found a rare flavor of ice cream that andrew had finished quickly -unabashedly so- from his perch on the hood of the car.

his face now was a placid pool. he was being nice. neil scrolled idly through the stations, not daring to upset whatever inspired the gesture.

they were a ways out from the city, so the words that broke the calm rain static of out-of-range stations caught neil unprepared.

_strumming my pain with his fingers_

his mother hated the song. not that she ever really listened to music with neil when they were on the run. she preferred the silence and enforced it violently.

_telling my whole life with his words_

but this song inspired a particular ferocity in his mother. he remembers when they, unlucky, found themselves in a bus station or cheap diner with the song buzzing dangerously through the radio.

_i prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on_

this song was a bruise in his memory. a weeping soreness in his chest. in her it festered.

_and there he was this young boy_

but now? he couldn't hate it. not like she did. he looked at andrew.

_i felt he found my letters and read each one out loud_

"staring" andrew exhaled quietly. smoke tumbled from his mouth and ensnared the air of the car. its tendrils broke neil's ribs apart.

"yeah" he rasped.

andrew turned at that, meeting neil's gaze with something quietly roiling in his eyes. his deceptive apathy glimmered at the edges, where something full and terrifying welled.

_and then he looked right through me._

neil didn't want to think about what his own face was doing at that moment.

 _telling my whole life_  

maybe he did hate it a little. not with the bitter rage that brought his mother's fists upon him or with the bleeding pain that stained everything in her life with anger, with jagged fear. neil took the slow hand that andrew offered over the center console.

 _killing me softly_  

the last humming notes rocked the smoke-hung air of the car to stillness, and andrew turned off the radio. he held the road in his gaze and neil’s rabbit-bones in his grip like they both might run away without him otherwise.

"i hate you" andrew said after a moment.

neil nodded, strumming the heavy pulse in andrew's pale wrist.

"yeah”

**Author's Note:**

> wasn't sure if this fandom had a roberta flack - killing me softly fic already so i gave it a go


End file.
